[Mor's End Discussion] Administration

[David Argall]

slavery thoughts

We should probably go with full bore slavery or none. The moderate positions fail to satisfy in one respect or another.

If we have slave caravans passing by, there is going to be a number of eager sellers and buyers, so keeping the slaves outside city walls will be difficult. At the same time, an anti-slavery city would be eager to suppress the slave caravans. So if we have slave caravans, we have slaves in the city.

Law codes giving slaves rights are in general a sign there are relatively few slaves, a small enough number to ignore for the most part. These codes mean that slave owners lack political pull and those who fear slavery, such as workers who deem slaves competition, are able to impose rules that limit it.
From city interest, slave rights is also dubious. We want things that give the DM hooks for adventures. Slave rights give hooks for lawsuits, not for everybody to be charging around swinging swords. By contrast, rescuing people from slavers or slavery has definite game potential.

By the way, all societies allowed slaves to buy their freedom. Those that legally forbad it didn't enforce those laws largely because they could not. It was routinely in the interest of the owner to give the slave the hope of freedom and the incentive to work hard to achieve it. The fact he was technically being paid with his own money didn't change that he was making a very nice profit on the deal, and thus the owner had powerful incentive to honor the deal.

Slavery is often used in cases of grunt or dangerous labor. Our silk fish have considerable potential here. Those put to tending to the fish could be in serious danger [which the PC might rescue them from] They could also be stealing the silk [another possible place for PC action.]
So we could have slave caravans dropping in to sell slaves for the silk farms as well as buy some local slaves, such as criminals or debtors, or people kidnapped off the street in some cases [giving us another adventure hook].

Recall that our city is not supposed to be a nice place to live. It is to be a good place to adventure, and that generally means lots of evil.

 

[Lalato]

Recall that our city is not supposed to be a nice place to live. It is to be a good place to adventure, and that generally means lots of evil.

I couldn't have said it better (well... I might have added the word "chaos" once or twice).

--sam

 

[Tonguez]

Re: slavery thoughts

Law codes giving slaves rights are in general a sign there are relatively few slaves, a small enough number to ignore for the most part. These codes mean that slave owners lack political pull and those who fear slavery, such as workers who deem slaves competition, are able to impose rules that limit it.
From city interest, slave rights is also dubious. We want things that give the DM hooks for adventures. Slave rights give hooks for lawsuits, not for everybody to be charging around swinging swords. By contrast, rescuing people from slavers or slavery has definite game potential.

Not sure I entirely agree with this notion and as a case in point I point to Biblical Egypt and the story of 'Joseph' - a slave who was also Steward to the Governor! (Apparently this was relatively common in Egypt - slaves with influential positions). Also since Egypt involved ownership of the slaves by the Pharoah and aristocracy I hardly think they lacked political pull

I beleive a few other places (Greek, Rome etc) also had systems where slaves were free to pursue careers in their spare time and could be quite rich and influential in their own right.

As to Plothooks again the Bible is full of adventure seeds based on Slaves - the story of Joseph, the entire Exodus of the Hebrew Slaves led by Moses, the story of Daniel (of Lion Dens fame) etc etc etc

Um in other words I like the notion of Soft Slavery

Slavery is often used in cases of grunt or dangerous labor. Our silk fish have considerable potential here. Those put to tending to the fish could be in serious danger [which the PC might rescue them from] They could also be stealing the silk [another possible place for PC action.]
So we could have slave caravans dropping in to sell slaves for the silk farms as well as buy some local slaves, such as criminals or debtors, or people kidnapped off the street in some cases [giving us another adventure hook].

I do like this idea - that the Silk Fishers actually do trade in slaves. It ties in with them being Elves (who are all elitist bustards right) and the Silk Fisher Clans assertion of being a distinct seperate community from the City proper

 

[jdavis]

Re: slavery thoughts

If we have slave caravans passing by, there is going to be a number of eager sellers and buyers, so keeping the slaves outside city walls will be difficult. At the same time, an anti-slavery city would be eager to suppress the slave caravans. So if we have slave caravans, we have slaves in the city.

I still think any selling of slaves should be done outside the city, you could have a slave bazaar to the north of the city (where it's relatively safe), or on the big island where the silk fish harvesters are. There would be a law against the buying and selling of slaves in the city of Mor's End but no law forbidding the owning of slaves. They definatly don't want to supress the slave caravans as this would cause the loss of a source of revenue (slave caravans would be taxed just like every other caravan), but having a big slave auction in the middle of the city is sort of slapping the common folk in the face with it. I like the idea of the silkfish harvesters using slaves and that would also put most of the slaves out of the city and towards the lake. You could have hard slavery, soft slavery, medium slavery or whatever but being as this is a new and young city it seems to be getting a lot of idealistic people in it, the government would not want poor laborers rioting over loosing their jobs to slaves,so the government uses the old out of sight, out of mind menthod. Slaves are a luxury item, the rich can easily go the 15 minutes out of town to get them if they want them.

I really wouldn't want slaves to be politically active or have any power as that ties them to deeply to the city, this should stay optional to the setting as many DM's don't use slavery in their settings and if you want this to be able to plug into anybody's setting then you need to keep this optional. For example the world I run doesn't have any slavery except for the Drow slavers, it just wouldn't fit into my setting.

 

[fusangite]

Re: slavery thoughts

David Argall says

We should probably go with full bore slavery or none. The moderate positions fail to satisfy in one respect or another.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Do you mean that chattel slavery is the only kind we should consider? If so, you're picking a model of slavery much rarer than the other types we're discussing.

Law codes giving slaves rights are in general a sign there are relatively few slaves, a small enough number to ignore for the most part. These codes mean that slave owners lack political pull and those who fear slavery, such as workers who deem slaves competition, are able to impose rules that limit it. From city interest, slave rights is also dubious. We want things that give the DM hooks for adventures. Slave rights give hooks for lawsuits, not for everybody to be charging around swinging swords. By contrast, rescuing people from slavers or slavery has definite game potential.

Sorry. But you're just wrong. The Southern US is the only slave-based society in Western history in which slaves had no rights. Chattel slavery was generally practiced by Germanic barbarians outside the Roman Empire who were far less dependent on slavery than their neighbours to the south were.

Roman and colonial Spanish and Portuguese societies in the New World were slave-based societies, absolutely dependent on slave labour. They gave slaves rights. Why?
1. Slaves are less likely to collectively organize to escape slavery if they can individually escape slavery.
2. More labour can be extracted from slaves if they are motivated to work hard in their spare time to buy themselves out of slavery.
3. Society at large is less likely to have severe ideological and religious problems if slavery is not monolithically brutal. Note that the Southern US basically had to believe slaves weren't human to sustain the system and even then it had nowhere near the longevity of Peruvian, Brazilian or Roman slavery.

By the way, all societies allowed slaves to buy their freedom. Those that legally forbad it didn't enforce those laws largely because they could not.

You're telling me that Haida slaves and confederate slaves were allowed to buy their freedom?

Slavery is often used in cases of grunt or dangerous labor. Our silk fish have considerable potential here. Those put to tending to the fish could be in serious danger [which the PC might rescue them from] They could also be stealing the silk [another possible place for PC action.]

Again, I have to disagree. Outside of the Southern US, slaves were less likely to be used in dangerous labour. Why? Simple economics. The costs of slave labour are all up-front; if a waged labourer is killed in the line of work, no investment is lost. If a slave is killed in the line of duty, the future work of the slave (for which you have already paid) is lost.

So we could have slave caravans dropping in to sell slaves for the silk farms as well as buy some local slaves, such as criminals or debtors, or people kidnapped off the street in some cases [giving us another adventure hook].

Recall that our city is not supposed to be a nice place to live. It is to be a good place to adventure, and that generally means lots of evil.

Here, I'm in full agreement with you.

I think Tonguez also makes a great point that the Bible is a great place for one to draw inspiration for good slave adventures.

 

[fusangite]

Please vote in the Lady Kelvin poll I posted. I'm having real trouble with hammering out who she is. Also, please check out the history thread if you haven't had a chance.

 

[Lalato]

Krug... e-mail me regarding the NPC contest...

lalato at yahoo dot com

--sam

 

[David Argall]

slavery

" Do you mean that chattel slavery is the only kind we should consider? If so, you're picking a model of slavery much rarer than the other types we're discussing."

Rarity is not a concern here. We are after game utility, and the lesser forms do not have the indignation factor for one thing.

"The Southern US is the only slave-based society in Western history in which slaves had no rights."

This is incorrect on both counts. The Southern slave had distinctly few rights, and rather fewer as time passed, but was not without recourse. A recent study found about 300 cases filed in Misouri by slaves against their owners, with a substantial number succeeding. The normal claim was that the slave had resided in a free state for some time and was thus a free man [Tho the newspaper articles imply that one woman won her freedom purely on a claim her master was cruel.] It seems the Dred Scott case was deemed slam dunk until the Supreme Court invented some law.
On the other end, we likely have problems of definition, both in area [Latin American is properly deemed Western and included huge numbers of abused slaves.] and the difference between theoretical and real rights.


"Chattel slavery was generally practiced by Germanic barbarians outside the Roman Empire who were far less dependent on slavery than their neighbours to the south were."

It was also practiced by the Romans who gave the slave about zero rights. The law eventually said the master could not kill the slave, but it also allowed the master to turn the slave over the the town executioner and order his execution. The slave could buy his freedom, but the master could simply take the money as his anyway and not grant freedom. He accepted the offer because it was in his interest, not because the law made him.

"colonial Spanish and Portuguese societies in the New World were slave-based societies, absolutely dependent on slave labour. They gave slaves rights."

Did they now?
These rights may have existed in some lawbooks back in Europe. They did not exist in the Americas where the slaved died in droves from harsh treatment.

"the Southern US basically had to believe slaves weren't human to sustain the system"

Nonsense. All they had to believe was those slaves were profitable, which they were.

"and even then it had nowhere near the longevity of Peruvian, Brazilian or Roman slavery."

The length of slavery is a function of outside forces, not of the slave society. Slavery pretty much lasts as long as there is a source of cheap slaves. When that dries up, slavery withers away. In the case of the American South, it was not given time to wither, so any measurement of longevity is worthless here.

"You're telling me that Haida slaves and confederate slaves were allowed to buy their freedom?"

In the case of Southern slaves, this is quite well documented. It did not happen often. in 1860, a prime field hand cost $2000 and $1 a day was durn good wages for a free man, much less a slave who pretty much had to take what he could get. You don't need to be a math major to see that was not easy. Most often it was an entire family uniting to free an eldest son, whose wages as a free man helped with some of the others. But it did happen.

"Outside of the Southern US, slaves were less likely to be used in dangerous labour. Why? Simple economics. The costs of slave labour are all up-front; if a waged labourer is killed in the line of work, no investment is lost. If a slave is killed in the line of duty, the future work of the slave (for which you have already paid) is lost."

Actually all the examples of this are from the Southern US, and precisely because slaves were expensive and thus well cared for there. Elsewhere slaves were cheaper and were used much more casually.
We might note here ancient Athens, whose prosperity was largely based on silver mines operated by slaves. The usual figure quoted is that no slave lived 5 years after entering the mine. But slaves were cheap and so they were sent to die for centuries.

Despite all the propaganda you hear these days, the slave in the Southern US had it easy, by the low standards of the average slave in the rest of the world that is. A simple proof of that is the natural birth rate. The US was about the only place where more slaves were born than died. In Latin America, far more died than were born and slavery would have rapidly vanished without continued supplies from Africa. In the Middle East, virtually no slaves managed to breed at all. The Ashanti of Africa were such efficient slavers that they simply slaughtered slaves by the thousands as public events.
The American South was a brutal system, but if you had to be a slave, it was a quite good place to be one.

"many DM's don't use slavery in their settings and if you want this to be able to plug into anybody's setting then you need to keep this optional."

Unless we are going to be super generic, we are just going to have to use some things that some DMs do not use. And it can be argued the other way too. It is not that easy to plug in a free city into a system that has slavery.
In either case you would need justifications, so the question is more whether the slavery is game useful, which we have good grounds for considering it.

"a few other places (Greek, Rome etc) also had systems where slaves were free to pursue careers in their spare time and could be quite rich and influential in their own right."

No place had a system like this. Rather the owners often found it to their profit to cut the slave some slack for various reasons. When the slave was skillful and/or lucky, he could become quite rich, but he was swimming upstream in doing so. A slave system prospers on what it can squeeze out of the slave, and the slave who manages to do well is the rare exception.


"I still think any selling of slaves should be done outside the city, you could have a slave bazaar to the north of the city (where it's relatively safe), or on the big island where the silk fish harvesters are. There would be a law against the buying and selling of slaves in the city of Mor's End but no law forbidding the owning of slaves."

Stated that way, it makes more sense. We are relatively segregating many things as it is, and putting slave business in one area fits fairly well.

 

[fusangite]

Re: slavery

David,

I'm glad to see you've done a lot of research into slaves' rights in the southern US. You've provided some very interesting information I haven't seen before. My knowledge of slavery in Dixie is limited to the antebellum period which, you acknowledge, was a nadir in terms of slaves' rights. I'd be very interested in hearing the sources you're citing for this information; I'd love to see how the legal framework for chattel slavery evolves self-purchase.

However, you seem to be putting forward some very incorrect views about slavery everywhere else in the world.

[QUPTE]"colonial Spanish and Portuguese societies in the New World were slave-based societies, absolutely dependent on slave labour. They gave slaves rights."
Did they now?
These rights may have existed in some lawbooks back in Europe. They did not exist in the Americas where the slaved died in droves from harsh treatment. [/QUOTE]

Actually David, I'm sitting here with a book of primary documents with pages and pages of legal proceedings by slaves against their owners. I also have a text with numerous statistics gleaned from thousands of additional court transcripts listing helpful things like the average rates of self-purchase, average prices, average length of time people spent as slaves within Spanish and Portuguese colonial possessions.

Did I say slaves didn't die in large numbers from harsh treatment? No. I said that their death rates from dangerous work were lower than that of wages labourers. What the texts I have emphasize is that in sectors with high death rates, like mining, slaves were generally kept out of the high risk activities and used in lower-risk activities.

"and even then it had nowhere near the longevity of Peruvian, Brazilian or Roman slavery."
The length of slavery is a function of outside forces, not of the slave society. Slavery pretty much lasts as long as there is a source of cheap slaves. When that dries up, slavery withers away. In the case of the American South, it was not given time to wither, so any measurement of longevity is worthless here.

I think saying that the length of time a society keeps a system of slavery has nothing whatsoever to do with the features of the system itself is a pretty dubious claim on its face.

In the case of Southern slaves, this is quite well documented. It did not happen often. in 1860, a prime field hand cost $2000 and $1 a day was durn good wages for a free man, much less a slave who pretty much had to take what he could get. You don't need to be a math major to see that was not easy. Most often it was an entire family uniting to free an eldest son, whose wages as a free man helped with some of the others. But it did happen.

That's extremely interesting. Did this purchase require the owner's consent or could there be court-ordered manumission (as was pervasive in Latin America)?

"Outside of the Southern US, slaves were less likely to be used in dangerous labour. Why? Simple economics. The costs of slave labour are all up-front; if a waged labourer is killed in the line of work, no investment is lost. If a slave is killed in the line of duty, the future work of the slave (for which you have already paid) is lost."
Actually all the examples of this are from the Southern US, and precisely because slaves were expensive and thus well cared for there. Elsewhere slaves were cheaper and were used much more casually.

Here, I think you're making a mistake. Have you looked at the treatment of Latin American mining slaves? Also, it's generally acknowledged that slave prices were higher in Latin America than in the US because a higher rate of importation was required due to the legal assumption that all foundlings are born free. Thus, the "sold down the river" phenomenon was much less common because many slaves who believed their children would be sold abandoned them to religious organizations.

We might note here ancient Athens, whose prosperity was largely based on silver mines operated by slaves. The usual figure quoted is that no slave lived 5 years after entering the mine. But slaves were cheap and so they were sent to die for centuries.

Can you refer me to the book you got this from? I've been wanting to read up on Athenian slavery for some time.

The US was about the only place where more slaves were born than died. In Latin America, far more died than were born and slavery would have rapidly vanished without continued supplies from Africa.

This statistic is likely factoring out the considerable rates of child abandonment to take advantage of the legal loophole for foundlings. Also, many slaves also waited to marry and start families until they got out of slavery. One of the features of Latin American slavery is that there are many instances of couples marrying late in life, in many cases, too late to have children.

"many DM's don't use slavery in their settings and if you want this to be able to plug into anybody's setting then you need to keep this optional."
Unless we are going to be super generic, we are just going to have to use some things that some DMs do not use. And it can be argued the other way too. It is not that easy to plug in a free city into a system that has slavery.
In either case you would need justifications, so the question is more whether the slavery is game useful, which we have good grounds for considering it.

Here, we're right on the same page even if we're disputing the nature of the different historical models, which is really a side argument anyway.

 

[Krug]

David,
Perhaps you should write up the business and we'll critique it?